28th April 2006 Archive

Steve Ballmer is blaming software pirates for the premium pricing Microsoft charges on products like Office and Windows. But he speculated that the advent of web-based services could see a lowering of Microsoft's charges.

Microsoft is keeping mum about how Windows Vista and Office 2007 will affect its coming fiscal year, but conceded investments to promote these, plus other new activities including online services, are pumping up corporate spending.

As sometimes happens, I got an email from a reader after writing a piece for Reg Developer. This time, the piece in question was Testing assumptions and the big stack and, as perhaps you will see, the email brought a guffaw, and then a thought.

It's no joke - Nintendo today renamed its next-generation console 'Wii'. As in 'we', apparently, but in school playgrounds across the UK - and probably everywhere else in the English-speaking world too - they'll be sniggering and adding a second 'e' to the 'we'.

Security researchers and legal experts have voiced concern this week over the prosecution of an information technology professional for computer intrusion after he allegedly breached a university's online application system while researching a flaw without the school's permission.

Sales of handheld devices are continuing to fall, according to new figures issued by research firm IDC. The organisation's latest worldwide Handheld Qview report reveals the total number of devices shipped during the first quarter of 2006 totaled 1.5m, a drop of 22.3 per cent year-on-year.

Intel may be about to take an axe to its employee roster as the chip giant strives to become "leaner, more agile and more efficient", the goal of a major restructure announced by CEO Paul Otellini last night. It will be the firm's biggest shake-up since the mid-1980s, he claimed.

Over 16.7m 'smart mobile devices' were shipped worldwide in the first quarter of 2006, up 55 per cent on the same period a year ago. According to research from Canalys, the Asia-Pacific region has now overtaken Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) in sales of smart mobile devices. Asia-Pacific represented 46 per cent of all shipments during Q1 2006, compared to 39 per cent for EMEA and 15 per cent for the Americas.

Disappointingly, the hidden message inserted by a High Court judge into his ruling on the Da Vinci Code copyright trial has already been solved. Mr Justice Peter Smith's code, reported yesterday, has been cracked by a London lawyer.

iPass, the company that pioneered straightforward dial-up support for roadwarriors worldwide, and which recently bought its main rival in the business, GoRemote (known to many as Gric), is seeking to take that customer base to the next generation of connectivity: the Wi-Fi hotspot.

Mexican lawmakers are in the process of setting up a national space agency, according to Reuters. The lower house in Mexico City has given the green light to a proposal that could see rocketry in development within the year.

Sony will next month launch its LocationFree TV (LFTV) service in the UK and other key European territories, allowing PlayStation Portable users to receive television programmes transmitted from the home and out across the internet. Mac users are to get access to the service too.

The word on the street this week is: be careful what you say, especially on the internet. It all kicked off with a Hamburg court ruling that forum moderators were legally responsible for posts. Cue general outrage:

Satellite navigation is a must-have these days. Established brands like TomTom, Garmin, Navman and Magellan are being challenged by a wide range of companies. Mio was early to market with competing products and even its own route-planning software, although until now none of its devices have sported phone features. Enter the Mio A701, a smart phone with a fully integrated GPS receiver...

US scientists have developed minuscule compound lenses that will allow insect-style panoramic vision. The research, reported in Science, was carried out by Professor Luke Lee and colleagues at the University of California, with backing from DARPA, the US government's defence research organ.

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is conducting a major fact-finding study to discover whether consumers receive enough protection when shopping online. Although more and more people are shopping online, some consumers are still concerned about matters such as payment security, fraud, and delivery problems.

TDK has gone ahead and produced the 200GB Blu-ray Disc it announced a few weeks ago that it was working on. And while it appears to have failed to compress four standard dual-layer 50GB discs together into a single unit, it has nonetheless come up with a novel alternative.

Intel will ship 'Conroe' in July and 'Merom' in August, CEO Paul Otellini said yesterday, illustrating his announcement with a slide using the icon of new buddy Apple's iCal application to indicate the ship dates.